


Paddington And The Spy

by TheArticulatedTurnip



Category: Paddington Bear - Michael Bond, The Professionals
Genre: Gen, Please look after this bear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 17:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2858417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArticulatedTurnip/pseuds/TheArticulatedTurnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paddington helps CI5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paddington And The Spy

Paddington woke with a start. He could hear a lot of shouting and banging downstairs. That was odd, he thought. Shouting and banging in the Brown household didn't usually happen without him, and never at 6am.

The door flew open and he was blinded by a bright light.

"You..." There was a pause. "Bear?"

"Good morning," said Paddington, "But I think you should learn to knock."

A figure half visible behind the light waved something.

"Down on the floor! Hands..." There was another pause. "Paws... on the back of your head.”

Paddington wondered whether these were burglars. He was considering shouting for help when one of the figures grabbed him.

"CI5! Armed agents! Nobody move!"

Paddington felt his knees begin to tremble. Police? He wondered guiltily whether they had finally discovered who had dropped the bun on their carpet during the open day.

The torch-light cut out and the overhead light was turned on. Facing Paddington was a short-haired man holding a gun in one hand and an important-looking identity badge in the other. At Paddington's side a man with longer fluffy hair was holding Paddington tightly. Framed in the doorway was a rather confused-looking Mr Brown.

A picture of a bag was thrust into Paddington's face.

"Right, sonny, a man left a suitcase tucked under the bottom of your garden hedge. What did you do with it?"

Paddington thought hard.

"Well," said Paddington with a gulp, "I thought he'd forgotten it so I brought it inside and put it by the front door. After elevenses with Mr Gruber I came back and he was standing at the door banging on it. He said he had come for his suitcase, and he was very rude, especially when I explained how carefully I had moved it somewhere safe."

"You gave him the suitcase?"

"He shouted a lot, and then Mr Curry glared over the fence and told us to be quiet. He told Mr Curry to mind his own business and Mr Curry told him he'd ..."

Paddington stopped.

"Told him?"

"I'm afraid I must have misheard Mr Curry," Paddington shook his head apologetically. "It sounded awfully uncomfortable."

"Where is the suitcase?"

"Mr Curry hit him over the head with it and then threw it into the back of a lorry that was driving past. The rude man was very upset. He shouted things."

Paddington blushed.

"And then he ran off after the lorry."

The man holding him let him go, and groaned.

"All right, bear. What did the lorry look like?"

Paddington thought. The events of yesterday had been a bit of a muddle and he'd needed a stiff hot chocolate and a bun to recover.

"I think," said Paddington, after a while, "it belonged to Mr Pickford. He drives past quite often. He must be a very busy man."

"Maybe," he added brightly, "you could ask Mr Pickford if it's still in his lorry?"

The man spoke into his radio. "4.5 to Control. The suitcase is in a Pickfords van that would have passed Windsor Gardens yesterday about 4pm. Yes, sir. No. I don't know. Bring him in, sir?"

"We'd like you to come with us," the other man said in a tone that made it clear that this was not a choice.

“In my pyjamas?” said Paddington, a little shocked.

Ten minutes and a marmalade sandwich later, a rather more composed Paddington came out from the kitchen.

The fluffy haired man was waiting. To Paddington's relief he seemed to have calmed down.

"Hi." He offered a hand. "I'm Doyle."

"Paddington." He offered a slightly sticky paw back.

"We want you to help us identify the man you saw. He's a spy!"

Paddington thought this was going to be exciting as he was ushered into the waiting car.

Doyle looked Paddington up and down. Mostly down. 

"You are a little small, aren't you? Best put the seatbelt on. We need to be there as soon as possible."

Paddington stood on the passenger seat and looked around. He knew a bit about seatbelts. Mr Gruber said they were very important to keep antiques safe when you moved them. He carefully pulled it across his body, bent down and clipped it into place.

The car engine roared and Paddington was pinned against the back of the seat as Doyle crashed through the gears. 

"I do hope you didn't wake up Mr Curry," said Paddington with concern.

"Why?" asked Doyle.

"Mrs Bird always says he needs his beauty sleep."

Doyle grinned and relaxed back into the driver's seat.

Paddington sniffed the cold morning air blowing through the half-open car windows. He watched the trees and wakening surburbia streak past in the semi-darkness. Paddington the spy, 00bear, travelling the world by air, and driving big cars. The fast and the furriest.

His reverie was abruptly interrupted by the roundabout. Paddington was never sure he liked roundabouts. They were complicated places where people always looked unhappy and blew their horns a lot. Paddington had also never been around an empty roundabout at eighty miles an hour before. As he slipped out of the seatbelt, he made a frantic grab with all four paws and hung on for dear life, spinning round and round the seatbelt one way and the other as the car swung through the roundabout, wheels squealing in complaint.

Paddington's head was still spinning a short while later as Doyle said, "Hold on, we're here," and slammed on the brakes while slamming the car sideways into a small parking space. Paddington shot forward, arms and legs flailing. His feet kicked open the glove box, sending maps and other things flying. Then he slammed back into the chair and to a final squeal of brakes he bounced forward again, this time with his right foot in the glove compartment.

Paddington tried to remove his foot. It was, he felt, most unfair that he had to stand on one leg while dizzy. He pulled gently, then pulled harder. He coughed politely. Doyle stared, groaned, reached across and pulled.

"I am," Paddington said with concern, "a little bit stuck."

Doyle rolled his eyes and reached for the radio. "3.7? This is 4.5. We're outside but we have a slight problem. Can you get someone to send some butter down from the canteen? Yes, butter. No, margarine will be fine. No, I have not banged my head on anything."

A few minutes later the other man from the police raid appeared and surveyed the mess.

"Meet Bodie," said Doyle, waving at the man with the butter.

"Hello," said Paddington glumly. He would have liked to have raised his hat but in his current predicament it was all a bit too difficult. He settled for trying to offer a paw while standing with one leg stuck in the glove compartment.

Doyle's voice broke in. "You didn't need to bring the butter down yourself. Don't you trust me to handle it?"

Bodie looked at the butter which Doyle was now using to grease Paddington's foot.

"Oh, I trust you with the butter."

Bodie grinned widely.

"Bodie!"

The two of them pulled hard and Paddington's foot popped loose.

"Right. Let's get you inside before the Cow gets any grumpier," said Bodie.

"Is that possible?" Doyle queried from the rear as they headed inside and up the stairs.

 

Paddington surveyed the CI5 office. It wasn't quite what he had hoped for. There were no mysterious bits of machinery and no secret trapdoors into the alligator tank. Just a very large desk.

"Did you bring him in?" said a Scottish voice from somewhere beyond the desk.

"He's here." Doyle gestured. The man stood up and peered over the far end of the desk.

"So he is. Good morning, Mr..."

"Paddington."

"Mr Paddington."

"Just Paddington," Paddington said helpfully, raising his hat.

The man frowned and gestured. Doyle lifted Paddington onto the edge of the desk. It was covered in photographs of people.

The man gestured across the photographs.

"Are any of these your suitcase man?"

Paddington peered down at the photographs. "That one," he decided.

"Him?" the man asked, pointing.

"Not him. The man behind him."

Bodie whistled.

The man thought, and then spoke quietly. "Who would have thought Kernikov was double-crossing us. I warned him what would happen if he did."

He reached for the phone.

"Is Kernikov still at the farmouse? He's not left? Right. Good. Are there any members of the public around? Excellent. He's double-crossing us. Send Tommy in to collect him. No, I don't care in how many pieces so long as there is enough to keep the coroner happy and make a positive ID. Out."

Bodie raised an eyebrow.

The man behind the desk looked at Paddington. "Thank you, Mr Paddington. We will be able to ... arrest the suspect now and try him for spying."

Paddington beamed happily.

The man looked back up.

"Right, you two, stop making my office look untidy and move. We need to go over that farmhouse with a fine toothcomb."

He pressed a buzzer.

"Betty, can you keep ... this bear ... occupied somwehere until he is collected."

 

Betty ushered Paddington into a back room. He'd never been into a computer room before. It looked just like the picture in Jonathan's book had looked before the accident with the washing-up liquid.

"You can sit here and play patience with the computer," Betty said and smiled.

Paddington tried to climb into the chair only to discover it was on wheels and rolled away when he tried to climb up. Who, wondered Paddington, puts a chair on wheels? He found himself being lifted up and placed in the chair then wheeled up to a computer terminal.

"There you are, Paddington. Mr Brown will be here to collect you soon."

“Thank you,” said Paddington politely.

Betty smiled, turned and left.

Paddington stared at the computer screen. The computer screen stared back. In little green squares it showed a set of playing cards and a question mark. Paddington thought carefully and began typing. Someone had put the buttons in a very silly order and he wished they were bigger. After a couple of minutes he had managed to type HELLO. Aunt Lucy had taught him to be polite when playing card games.

A message appeared on the screen. Paddington stood gingerly on the edge of the wheely chair in order to read it. Behind him a large machine started up with a loud hammering noise. Paddington jumped up, and fell back into the chair. The chair rocketed across the room. Bear and chair crashed into a large metal box with flickering lights. He was thrown forward and to his horror his hat - and the marmalade sandwich he kept beneath it - disappeared into the top of the machine. 

Paddington frantically pulled his hat free but the sandwich was gone.

There was absolute silence. It was not a very long silence. Then there was a lot of shouting and a smell of warm toast wafted through the room. Paddington tried to get down but the tricky chair rolled away, leaving him to hang from the machine waving his legs.

"Oh dear," Paddington thought. He suspected he was going to be in trouble.

At that moment Mr Brown, the important gentleman, and half a dozen other people poured in through the door. Paddington was fished out of the machine, closely followed by a smoking sandwich.

Mr Brown looked around at the chaos. "Paddington," he said with an air of certainty. "I think it is time we left.” He turned to the older man, “Thank you for looking after him, Mr Cowley. I do hope your computer is well?"

Cowley nodded, somewhat distracted.

"I think," said Paddington gazing sadly at the smoking remains of his lunch, "I will need to ask Mrs Bird to make me another sandwich."


End file.
